The Founding of Detroit | History Today The Founding of Detroit USA America's "motor city" was founded on July 24th, 1701. The motor capital of North America was founded by a man named Cadillac, menaced by one called Pontiac and ultimately given its twentieth-century role by one named Ford. Early European explorers of North America had hoped to discover gold and silver, but found furs instead. It was French fur traders who in 1604 established the first permanent French colony in North America at Port Royal in Nova Scotia. Quebec was founded four years later. French explorers pushed down the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and by 1700 there were 15-25,000 French in North America – farmers, traders, hunters, trappers and missionaries, many of them in isolated forts and trading posts – by contrast with some 250,000 British settlers packed in colonies down the eastern seaboard. New France was closely supervised from Paris. Only Roman Catholics were permitted as settlers and the Jesuits and Franciscans discovered a powerful zeal for converting the native American Indians.

A French settler with a promising future ahead of him was Antoine Laumet de Lamothe Cadillac, a Gascon adventurer of tremendous charm and matching unscrupulousness, in his forties. He added de Lamothe Cadillac to his name to make himself sound aristocratic, equipped himself with a bogus pedigree, coat of arms and army commission, and concealed his origins so effectively that his early life has remained obscure ever since. Arriving in North America in the 1680s, he was put in command at the Great Lakes post of Michilimackinack in 1694 and lined his pockets by selling the Indians brandy – illegally and to the fierce disapproval of both the Indian chiefs and the Jesuits – and taking bribes from beaver-pelt traders and smugglers. With approval from Paris, he set out in 1701 to build a fort and trading post on the river between Lake Erie and Lake Huron. The purpose was to control the traffic on the river, secure the rich trade in furs in the Great Lakes region for France and provide a base to help protect the French and their Indian allies against the British.

Travelling in birchbark canoes with a hundred or so Frenchmen, an equal number of friendly Indians and the inevitable pair of priests, Cadillac picked a site on a bluff overlooking the strait between Lake Erie and Lake Saint Clair, where he and his men spent some weeks building Fort Ponchartrain du Detroit. It was named in compliment to Louis XIV’s minister of marine and colonies, Louis Phélypeaux de Ponchartrain, while Detroit was French for ‘the strait’. A small settlement developed, though both the colonists and the local Indians objected to Cadillac’s tyrannical and extortionate administration. In 1710, more or less in disgrace, he was packed off to be governor of Louisiana, which was considered a thoroughly undesirable post. He was later recalled to France and spent some time in the Bastille before ending his life comfortably installed as governor of a town in his native Gascony, where he died in 1730. His fake coat of arms would long afterwards adorn Cadillac cars.

Detroit meanwhile was surrendered to the British in 1760 during the Seven Years’ War and then unsuccessfully besieged by the Ottawa Indian chief Pontiac, who had forged an unprecedented alliance of practically every Indian people from Lake Superior to the lower Mississippi against the British. However, the British occupation did not end until 1796, when Detroit came under American control. The stories behind car brand names — David Airey · 11 comments Etymology is the study of the history of words. There’s a collection of company name etymologies on Wikipedia. Here are a few choice picks from the automotive industry. Alfa Romeo – the company was originally known as ALFA, an acronym for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili. When Nicola Romeo bought ALFA in 1915, his surname was appended. (photo credit) Aston Martin – from the “Aston Hill” races (near Aston Clinton) where the company was founded, and the surname of Lionel Martin, the company’s founder. (photo credit: carpictures1.com) Audi – Latin translation of the German name “Horch.” The founder August Horch left the company after five years, but still wanted to manufacture cars.

Since the original “Horch” company was still there, he called his new company Audi, the Latin form of his last name. In English it is “hark.” (photo credit) BMW – Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Works). (photo credit) Cadillac – named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit, Michigan. Cadillac is a small town in the South of France. The company, founded in 1902, was purchased by General Motors in 1909 and survives to this day as a GM brand. (photo credit) Chevrolet – named after company co-founder Louis Chevrolet, a Swiss-born auto racer. The company was merged into General Motors in 1917 and survives only as a brand name. (photo credit) Chrysler – named after the company founder, Walter P. Chrysler. (photo credit) Citroën – named after André-Gustave Citroën (1878–1935), a French entrepreneur of Dutch descent. He was the fifth and last child of the Dutch Jewish diamond merchant Levie Citroën and Mazra Kleinmann (of Warsaw, Poland).

(photo credit) Daewoo – company founder Kim Woo Chong called it Daewoo which means “great house” or “great universe” in Korean. (photo credit) Datsun – first called DAT, from the initials of its financiers Den, Aoyama and Takeuchi. Soon changed to DATSON to imply a smaller version of their original car, then (as SON can mean “loss” in Japanese) again to DATSUN when they were acquired by Nissan. (photo credit) Ferrari – from the name of its founder, Enzo Ferrari. (photo credit) Fiat – acronym of Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Automobile Factory of Turin). (photo credit) Ford Motor Company – named after its founder, Henry Ford, who introduced automobile mass production in 1914. (photo credit) Honda – from the name of its founder, Soichiro Honda. (photo credit) Hyundai – connotes the sense of “the present age” or “modernity” in Korean. (photo credit) Mercedes – from the first name of the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who distributed cars of the early Daimler company around 1900.

(photo credit) Nissan – the company was earlier known by the name Nippon Sangyo which means “Japan Industries.” (photo credit) Porsche – car company named after founder Ferdinand Porsche, an Austrian automotive engineer. The family name may have originated in the Czech name “Boreš” (boresh). (photo credit) Proton – Malaysian car manufacturer, where the name is derived from Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional. (photo credit) Renault – named after the founder Louis Renault. (photo credit) Rolls-Royce – name used by Rolls-Royce plc and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, among others. In 1884 Frederick Henry Royce started an electrical and mechanical business, making his first car, a Royce, in 1904. He was introduced to Charles Stewart Rolls on 4 May that year. The pair entered into a partnership in which Royce would manufacture cars to be sold exclusively by Rolls, and the cars would be called Rolls-Royce. (photo credit) Saab – founded in 1937 in Sweden as Svenska Aeroplan aktiebolaget (Swedish Aeroplane Company); the last word is typically abbreviated as AB, hence Saab and Saab Automobile AB.

(photo credit) SEAT – an acronym from Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo (Spanish Corporation of Touring Cars). (photo credit) Subaru – from the Japanese name for the constellation known to Westerners as Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. Subaru’s parent company, Fuji Heavy Industries, was formed from a merger of six companies, and the constellation is featured on the company’s logo. (photo credit) Toyota – from the name of the founder, Sakichi Toyoda. Initially called Toyeda, it was changed after a contest for a better-sounding name. The new name was written in katakana with eight strokes, a number that is considered lucky in Japan. (photo credit) Volkswagen – from the German for people’s car. Ferdinand Porsche wanted to produce a car that was affordable for the masses – the Kraft-durch-Freude-Wagen (or “Strength-Through-Joy car,” from a Nazi social organization) later became known, in English, as the Beetle. (photo credit) Volvo – which means “I roll” in Latin, from the infinitive form “volvere.” It was originally a name for a ball bearing being developed by SKF.

(photo credit) You can read a ton more company name etymologies on Wikipedia. Additionally, you might find these Logo Design Love blog posts of interest: I had absolutely no idea where any of these names came from — some of the logos actually make sense now. Great collection of photos as well. Henry Ford - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com Google Henry Ford: Early Life & Engineering Career Born in 1863, Henry Ford was the first surviving son of William and Mary Ford, who owned a prosperous farm in Dearborn, Michigan . At 16, he left home for the nearby city of Detroit, where he found apprentice work as a machinist. He returned to Dearborn and work on the family farm after three years, but continued to operate and service steam engines and work occasional stints in Detroit factories. In 1888, he married Clara Bryant, who had grown up on a nearby farm. Did You Know? The mass production techniques Henry Ford championed eventually allowed Ford Motor Company to turn out one Model T every 24 seconds. In the first several years of their marriage, Ford supported himself and his new wife by running a sawmill.

In 1891, he returned with Clara to Detroit, where he was hired as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company. Rising quickly through the ranks, he was promoted to chief engineer two years later. Around the same time, Clara gave birth to the couple’s only son, Edsel Bryant Ford. On call 24 hours a day for his job at Edison, Ford spent his irregular hours on his efforts to build a gasoline-powered horseless carriage, or automobile. In 1896, he completed what he called the “Quadricycle,” which consisted of a light metal frame fitted with four bicycle wheels and powered by a two-cylinder, four-horsepower gasoline engine. Henry Ford: Birth of Ford Motor Company and the Model T Determined to improve upon his prototype, Ford sold the Quadricycle in order to continue building other vehicles. He received backing from various investors over the next seven years, some of whom formed the Detroit Automobile Company (later the Henry Ford Company) in 1899. His partners, eager to put a passenger car on the market, grew frustrated with Ford’s constant need to improve, and Ford left his namesake company in 1902.

(After his departure, it was reorganized as the Cadillac Motor Car Company.) The following year, Ford established the Ford Motor Company. A month after the Ford Motor Company was established, the first Ford car—the two-cylinder, eight-horsepower Model A—was assembled at a plant on Mack Avenue in Detroit. At the time, only a few cars were assembled per day, and groups of two or three workers built them by hand from parts that were ordered from other companies. Ford was dedicated to the production of an efficient and reliable automobile that would be affordable for everyone; the result was the Model T , which made its debut in October 1908. Henry Ford: Production & Labor Innovations The “Tin Lizzie,” as the Model T was known, was an immediate success, and Ford soon had more orders than the company could satisfy. As a result, he put into practice techniques of mass production that would revolutionize American industry, including the use of large production plants; standardized, interchangeable parts; and the moving assembly line. Mass production significantly cut down on the time required to produce an automobile, which allowed costs to stay low.

In 1914, Ford also increased the daily wage for an eight-hour day for his workers to $5 (up from $2.34 for nine hours), setting a standard for the industry. Even as production went up, demand for the Tin Lizzie remained high, and by 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts. In 1919, Ford named his son Edsel as president of Ford Motor Company, but he retained full control of the company’s operations. After a court battle with his stockholders, led by brothers Horace and John Dodge, Henry Ford bought out all minority stockholders by 1920. In 1927, Ford moved production to a massive industrial complex he had built along the banks of the River Rouge in Dearborn, Michigan. The plant included a glass factory, steel mill, assembly line and all other necessary components of automotive production. That same year, Ford ceased production of the Model T, and introduced the new Model A, which featured better horsepower and brakes, among other improvements. By that time, the company had produced some 15 million Model Ts, and Ford Motor Company was the largest automotive manufacturer in the world.

Ford opened plants and operations throughout the world. Henry Ford: Later Career & Controversial Views The Model A proved to be a relative disappointment, and was outsold by both Chevrolet (made by General Motors) and Plymouth (made by Chrysler); it was discontinued in 1931. In 1932, Ford introduced the first V-8 engine, but by 1936 the company had dropped to number three in sales in the automotive industry. Despite his progressive policies regarding the minimum wage, Ford waged a long battle against unionization of labor, refusing to come to terms with the United Automobile Workers (UAW) even after his competitors did so. In 1937, Ford security staff clashed with UAW organizers in the so-called “Battle of the Overpass,” at the Rouge plant, after which the National Labor Relations Board ordered Ford to stop interfering with union organization. Ford Motor Company signed its first contract with UAW in 1941, but not before Henry Ford considered shutting down the company to avoid it. Ford’s political views earned him widespread criticism over the years, beginning with his campaign against U.S. involvement in World War I . He made a failed bid for a U.S.

Senate seat in 1918, narrowly losing in a campaign marked by personal attacks from his opponent. In the Dearborn Independent, a local newspaper he bought in 1918, Ford published a number of anti-Semitic writings that were collected and published as a four volume set called The International Jew. Though he later renounced the writings and sold the paper, he expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and Germany, and in 1938 accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Nazi regime’s highest medal for a foreigner. Edsel Ford died in 1943, and Henry Ford returned to the presidency of Ford Motor Company briefly before handing it over to his grandson, Henry Ford II, in 1945. He died two years later at his Dearborn home, at the age of 83. Tags History of Famous Car Brands - Autoblog Autoblog Gary Hoffman With car companies going in into bankruptcy and shedding famous names left and right, it's important to remember that today's automotive titans started out as tiny startups, not unlike Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Names like Ford , General Motors , Chrysler , Toyota and Porsche call to mind the huge corporate successes of the past and the great automotive families that survive today.

But behind every brand name, there is a flesh-and-blood inventor, entrepreneur or industrialist. Most of the time, they gave their name to the companies. And that fame was often about all they ended up with. David Buick, who invented the overhead valve engine, founded the Buick Motor Car Co. in 1903. William C. Durant, the industrialist who would eventually found GM, took over the company in 1904, when it ran into financial trouble. Buick stayed on as a director, but left in 1908, never making much money from the enterprise. He reportedly died in 1929, unable to afford one of his cars. Durant kept the name for one of his company divisions and for the car, even though he worried that people might pronounce it "Boo-ick," according to one author. Strangely enough, the man who practically created General Motors single-handedly never really liked the idea of a 'Durant' car. In another example, Robert Hupp invented the Hupmobile,'a two-seat runabout, in 1908. But he sold his stock in his Hupp Motor Car Company in 1911.

He turned around and founded the Hupp Corp. that same year. Investors in his first firm took him to court to make him drop the "Hupp" from his new company's name and they won. His own automotive glory quickly faded, although the Hupmobile survived until the 1940s. Swiss-born Louis Chevrolet's experience was similar. Durant brought him into a new car-building venture in 1911, hoping to trade on his fame as an absolutely fearless race car driver. Chevrolet left the company in 1913, apparently unable to make the adjustment from racing to building production vehicles. But its name stuck to the new Chevrolet vehicles; Durant reportedly liked its musical lilt. It could also work the other way around. In 1925, Walter P. Chrysler got the naming rights to the Maxwell Motor Co. after he and another industrialist steadily bought up shares in the firm over a two-year period. Things turned out a little differently for Henry Ford. He suffered the ignominy of being booted from an early auto company that bore his own name. But his revenge was sweet.

The Henry Ford Company, which traded freely on Ford's early fame as an inventor, fired him in 1902 "because he was spending all his time developing a race car, not a passenger car," according to the Encyclopedia of American Business and Biography. AOL Autos: Ford's Wonder Woman engineers their most important new car . After Ford was gone, the company was renamed Cadillac, after Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac, the French nobleman who founded Detroit in 1703; his heraldry became the model's badge and the company became a part of General Motors in 1909. After his firing, Ford quickly found investors to help him found his own firm, the Ford Motor Co., in 1903. He introduced the company's first new vehicle, the Model and followed it up with other low-cost vehicles, including his greatest achievement, the Model T, in 1908. Its price tag started at $850 and fell steadily as Ford introduced more production innovations. The young firm became phenomenally successful. AOL Autos: 10 classic American rides . In the 1920s, he got the chance to buy the five-year-old Lincoln Motor Co.

out of bankruptcy. It was then owned by one of the very people, Henry Leland, who fired him in 1902. Then he used the former aircraft company to launch his own line of luxury cars bearing the Lincoln name. For its part, General Motors almost didn't get the name it bears today. Durant actually incorporated his company under the name "International Motors Co.", in New Jersey in 1908. But his attorney advised him that it would be easier to raise capital under a new name. "We might use 'United Motors Company' were it not for the fact that there is already a United Motor Car Company in that state," the attorney wrote. "We suggest the name General Motors Company, as we have ascertained it can be used." A newly coined French word, auto-mobile, inspired many vehicle names of the early years. Inventor Ransom E. Olds filed a patent for an "auto-mobile" during the mid-1890s. Names like Bugmobile, Locomobile, Hupmobile, and of course, the Oldsmobile, could not have come along without it. The origins of some names can be tricky to trace. The first use of Jeep, for instance.

is shrouded in mist. Jim Allen, the author of a book called "Jeep," concludes that it's based on early World War II slang for "a new, unproven recruit or a new unproven vehicle." It wasn't until 1950 that Toledo-based Willys-Overland, Inc., one of the producers of the early four-wheel-drive vehicle, trademarked the term. Many of the names were not originally associated with the auto industry. The Toyota name came from the Toyoda loom works in Kariya, Japan; When it turned to car production, the Toyoda family changed the 'd' to a 't' to make it simpler and more elegant in Japanese script. AOL Autos: Top 10 best car names . There's little doubt about other brand names. Pontiac was an offshoot of the Pontiac Buggy Co., a horseless carriage manufacturer named after a renowned Indian chief. Mechanic Soichiro Honda started producing motorized bicycles after the devastation of World War II and eventually graduated to cars. AOL Autos: Pontiacs we'll never forget .

Volkswagen, a response to Adolf Hitler's call for a car for the common folk, means 'people's car' in German, evidently beating out the prototype's name, 'Strength through Joy,' for the honors. In 1917, the Rapp Engine Works became known as the Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH, or Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) as the four-year-old airplane engine firm diversified into motorcycle engines, with a stylized white propeller against a blue sky as its logo, according to some authorities. The first BMW cars were produced 11 years later. The legendary Jaguar name is considered one of the best sports car names of all time. It beat out a long list of lackluster animal names compiled by a British ad agency in 1935. In 1939, Ford struck gold with Mercury, the fleet-footed messenger of the gods. It tapped into Greek and Roman mythology for the name, just as it did for the similarly styled Lincoln Zephyr, the god of the wind, three years earlier. Some other storied automotive brands are based on acronyms. Fiat stands for Fabbrica Italiani Automobili Torino, or Italian Automotive Works Turin.

Similarly, Saab stands for Svenska Aeroplanaktiebolaget, or Swedish Aeroplane Ltd., hearkening back to the automaker's origins as an aircraft company. Ford might have done better with an acronym in 1958. The Edsel was conceived as a new, distinct Ford Motor Co. brand, with its own models, badge and division. The mission was to take on GM's Oldsmobile. After considering thousands of suggestions, Ford named the new brand after Edsel Ford, Henry Ford's only child. He had been a major styling influence within the company and was its president at his fathers death in 1943. The name Edsel was an immediate letdown. Ford stock fell 10 points on the day it was announced. One disenchanted executive predicted that the name alone would cost the new vehicle 200,000 units in sales. AOL Autos: Best and worst automotive designs of all time . Its name wasn't the sole reason for its failure. It didn't help that the country was in recession or that the new car seemed based on Ford and Mercury models. But all that didn't stop Edsel from entering the vocabulary as an idea or project fated to failure.

Read More Stories: Detroit: The New Motor City Detroit: The New Motor City Glenn Counts, Steve Ronson, and Kurt Spenser Poverty & Prejudice: Breaking the Chains of Inner City Poverty Detroit, Motown, the Motor City. Michigan and Detroit in particular became the center of the auto industry at the beginning of the twentieth century due to a number of factors. Steel, the Great Lakes shipping industries, and a large and growing workforce all contributed. Perhaps the most striking force though was the unique collection of inventors, dreamers, and designers that made the Detroit area their home. Ransom E. Olds, Henry Ford, the Dodge brothers, David Dunbar Buick, Walter P. Chrysler, and even the French explorer who founded Detroit, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, all are household names today, not because of any outstanding achievement, although there were many, but because the cars which they produced or which bear their names are a part of the fabric of everyday American life. The Big 3 auto makers, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler were all formed and headquartered in Detroit by 1924.

(Wright, Richard A.) After fledgling beginnings and the national struggle of the Great Depression, the American automotive industry entered its Golden Age with the end of World War II. America was experiencing nuclear, scientific, economic, and automotive hegemony. American Automobiles were luxurious, reliable, powerful, low priced, and beautiful. (Wright, Richard A.) The World and Nation took notice. The Detroit area economy boomed, attracting masses of labor to fill the assembly line positions in the factories which had been converted after the war to produce spark plugs, transmissions and trucks as opposed to tanks and B-24 bombers. In 1952, Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense to Eisenhower and former president of GM, told a House Committee, quite honestly, that what was good for General Motors, was good for the Country. What was good for GM was then certainly good for Detroit. The economy of the communities surrounding Detroit were revolving around the boom of the assembly and parts plants of the Big 3, and GM in particular, which soon grew to become the world's largest corporation. The first sign of any trouble came in 1956, when the Big 3 saw a minor slump in their sales, and the doubling of import sales.

The change in the market was due to the growing popularity of European compact cars. Detroit did not panic. They began working on scaled down models of their successful lines, and some new compact models. The push toward the compact market was not very strong though as the era shunned anything foreign. Those that drove imports were dismissed as oddballs, flakes, college professors and leftists. In reality though, they were trendsetters, and the market shift was a sign of things to come. (Wright, Richard A.) During the civil rights movement, the blue collar assembly line economy and inner city social problems proved to be a dangerous mixture. The 1960's showed the country that Detroit had its share of problems, and in the 1970's, the outside world crashed in on Detroit. The Middle East put the fear of gas shortages into America. Washington blamed Detroit for the problems of air pollution, safety, and fuel economy. It was a public relations nightmare. After the second oil crisis in 1979, the large rapid rise in the cost of gasoline caused Americas love affair with the automobile to go sour. Buyers now wanted smaller more efficient cars, and the Japanese had the best.

Detroit had been devoting most of its attention to political and judicial battles. The Big 3 were busy pleasing politicians by meeting air pollution and safety standards through downsizing its oversized designs. These cars were not attractive to the consumer. What had made American cars so great in the 1950's and 60's was now their greatest hindrance. Their cars simply were not attractive consumer products. The Japanese had done an incredible job in this area. Detroit was dispirited and its economy was faltering. In the early 1980's Chrysler was sliding towards financial disaster. GM poured 50$ million into the development of a new rotary engine, but couldn't get it to work, while a small Japanese firm, Mazda did. Ford was losing money so fast that there was talk of not only pulling out of Detroit, but North America all together. The Japanese were selling about one of every four cars sold in the United States. Detroit's communities sensing the impending danger of all of this scrambled for an answer, a scapegoat. Buy American bumper stickers soon became the hottest selling item in Detroit Posters which read "Pearl Harbor II" showed pictures of Japanese bombers dropping cars on the North American continent.

Overpasses were graffitied with slogans like, "friends don't let friends drive imports" and "imports are for assholes". The distrust of the Japanese was back in Detroit. As plants began to lay off workers, the animosity grew, and in 1982 drew national attention when two laid off auto assembly line workers chased down and beat to death a Chinese American, Vincent Chin outside a bar. Chin who was getting married later in the week happened to be an assembly line worker himself. His attackers, father and son. The tragedy personalized the out of control downward spiral which Detroit was caught in. The Auto industry which had seemingly brought so much to the Detroit area was now bringing poverty, racism and even death. The people in Detroit however wanted to believe in the Big 3 and the American dream that they were raised on: If you worked hard and your company prospered, then you would also prosper. What was the answer? The people of Detroit thought that it was to work harder and buy more American cars so that the company wouldn't lay more workers off. This, however was not the solution. It wasn't the solution because the assembly line workers didn't actually understand fully the problem.

The Big 3 seemed content to let everyone think that the Japanese were the root of all evil, when in reality, it wasn't the Japanese that were causing the layoffs in Detroit. While the initial market shift caused the Big 3 to initially lose money, they actually recovered quite quickly and turned things around financially despite the horrible scene which persisted in Michigan. How could this be? The Big 3 had adapted to the growing global market by becoming more and more global themselves. The total internationalization of the auto industry, which is what the Buy American sentiment was actually trying to resist, had already happened. By the 1980's, what was an American car and what wasn't was unclear. Engines and transmissions were built in other countries, and assembled in the United States with American nameplates. Foreign nameplates were also rolling off assembly lines in the U.S. by this point. Was a Japanese car put together by American workers in America really a "foreign" car? These issues were understood by America's businessmen, but not the assembly line worker. What the blue collar majority knew was that they were working hard, their companies were once again prospering, but they were losing their jobs.

General Motors and the factories located just northwest of Detroit were the most tragic example of this. Flint was the birthplace of GM, the World's largest corporation. Until the late 70's the two had grown and prospered together. But, in the mid 1980's GM began laying off thousands and closing plants which had been the city's lifeline for over fifty years. It was finally announced that eleven GM plants were to be closed and moved to Mexico in order to cut costs. But, since 1983, GM's car sales had risen, and the company had posted record profits reaching 19$ billion, yet GM laid off over 50,000 people in Flint alone by 1989. ( It clearly wasn't the Japanese that the Detroit auto workers had to worry about, it was their "own" profit seeking corporations that were putting them out on the curb. The scenes in Flint and other areas were and still are dumbfounding. In Flint over 28,000 had lost their homes and left town by 1989.

For those that remained, they saw entire neighborhoods boarded up, city blocks deserted, and rat population which outnumbered humans two to one due to the fact that the city could not afford to pick up trash more than once or twice a month. Scenes seemed to appear out of the 1930's. Upwards of 20,000 people standing in one line to collect government surplus butter and cheese, Record unemployment rates reaching 25%, record suicide and murder rates, increases in spousal abuse, alcoholism, a crime rate higher than Miami, and general social decay. ( Flint is no longer a picturesque Midwestern town, it is a battle zone. This is the backdrop on which present day Detroit sits, and unfortunately or fortunately another drastic change is upon the auto industry. An impending energy crisis is on its way. Even the most generous estimates give less than fifteen years before oil prices skyrocket. Much like the oil crises of the 70's this new oil shortage will necessitate change. Detroit's communities do have an opportunity to take advantage of this. The Unions through community urging must become increasingly international as the global corporations expand even further into smaller countries.

And second, the Detroit automotive communities must invite the next generation of vehicles to be manufactured in Detroit. The Hybrid car is unarguably the wave of the future. The UAW and the Detroit Auto Industry Unions have been a part of the American working class since the Knights of Labor captured the countrys imagination in 1878 (Short History). They have been important in fighting for the freedoms and benefits that we often take for granted today. Holidays, overtime pay, medical benefits and vacations would probably not be around without the struggle of the American unions over the past century. With the introduction of the combustible engine and the mass production of cars, a new industry was born. Detroit was the proud capital of car production, and the workers who built them. When tough situations arose for these auto workers, they started to ban together to get what they needed. The most prominent union in the auto industry is the United Auto Workers, or the UAW. The UAW started as a small local union in Flint, Michigan, just outside of Detroit.

In the midst of the Great Depression, some GM workers, fed up with company treatment, believed that it was time to organize and establish better working conditions Unemployment rates were high, so a traditional strike was feared to fail. So on December 30th, 1936, the workers at the Fisher body plant in Flint stopped working and sat down in the factory, disabling work to be completed on the car bodies there. Soon GM workers in surrounding factories in Flint and Detroit sat down on the job, and eventually workers across the country joined in the sit-down strike. GM turned off the heat in the factories and local police tried to storm the factories in order to remove the workers several times, but the strikers held there ground and repelled the attempts to oust them. Democratic pro-labor Michigan Governor Frank Murphy brought in the National Guard to protect the strikers from the police. He forced both sides to the bargaining table. Negotiations failed, due to GM not keeping up to their end of the deal, and the sit down strike continued. GM finally had to give in to workers demands when the strikers took control of plant number 4, which employed over 4000 and produced all the engines for all Chevrolet models.

On February 11th, 1937, GM recognized the United Auto Workers as the sole bargaining agent for twenty of its production factories. Two years later the entire company was unionized by the UAW. The success of the sit down strike led to Ford and Chrysler workers to demand their right to Unionize and they joined the UAW soon after. In fact the sit-down strike in Flint set a tidal wave of strikes across the country in all areas for better conditions and steady pay (Famous Flint ) Today the UAW is an international Union that produces more than just cars. Its products include everything from tools to food and even beer. Although it continues to fight for high wages and reasonable hours, lately the fight has been just to keep their jobs. Striking methods such as the sit down strike in Flint have worked in the past in order to achieve the Unions goals, but lately the factories have been moved away from under them, so striking is not as powerful as it used to be. A Detroit article says, "the central issue (for Unions) continues to be the loss of jobs due to subcontracting and the relocation of production, which are implicitly struggles over investment" (Bacon "Striking" 1).

In the late eighties, companies realized the advantages of foreign investment, as they replace expensive American labor with the highly available and very cheap Mexican labor. Thousands of jobs were lost in the Detroit area and many left homeless and hopeless due to the divestment of local capital and investment into foreign factories. During a strike in the Summer of 1998 that demanded GM reinvest in the Flint Metal Center as previously promised, a leaked company document detailed plans to increase production in Mexico from 300,000 to 600,000 vehicles by 2006 (Bacon "Striking" 1). The strikers had support from other workers across the nation, and even from Canada and Mexico. "Even in Mexico, workers are told the company can find a cheaper place to build the next factory" (2). Divestment seems to be a concern for workers everywhere. Mexican workers recently had a big breakthrough in June of 1998. Experienced workers walked into the Han Young factory, which welds truck chassis for the Hyundai manufacturing complex in Tijuana, and turned off the means of production.

They then strung strike banners across the plant and parked their cars in front of the doors, so no one could go in or out. Unlike the Flint sit-down strike of 1937, the Mexican political establishment worked against the strikers instead of for them, complaining that the strike was provoked by foreign unions to discourage foreign investment in Mexico (Bacon, "Tijuana" 1). Right now there are more than 2,700 foreign owned maquiladora (factory) plants near the Mexican-American border, employing nearly a million workers. The low wages and proximity to the U.S. make it an ideal place to put factories, but these labor disputes challenge this system. If Mexican workers are able to form their own unions and strike for more benefits wages will increase and foreign investment is less likely. This has the current Mexican government worried. "[G]overnment policy relies on maintaining low wages as an attraction for foreign investment. So the government, its affiliated unions and the employers association have all allied themselves against us," says Enrique Hernandez, organizer of the October 6 Union for Community Labor Defense, which is the independent Union responsible for the strike at the Han Young factory.

Strike leader Mijuel Angel Sanches continues, "the Mexican Government is protecting foreign investors who are here exploiting us and violating our laws, when they should be protecting us and enforcing the law. If it's OK for the companies to cross the border to do this, I think it's not only right for workers to support each other across the same border, it's necessary" (Bacon, Tijuana 2). It seems it would be in the UAW and Detroit's best interest if the Mexican government did become more pro-labor, and the Mexican workers in the maquiladoras joined the UAW to form a strong continental union. This would not only make the conditions in Mexico better, but would make it more unattractive for the "Big Three" to shut down plants in Michigan and put them elsewhere. Even if the Mexican workers don't join the UAW specifically, if they win the right to form their own independent unions, it may be good enough to protect the interests of both the American and Mexican worker, at the expense of the Corporation' 5 profits. As American companies have moved into Mexico and employed thousands there, why cannot foreign companies move into the United States and employ thousands here?

Japanese car makers have lately been moving assembly plants to the United States, to manufacture and sell the cars here. The Detroit area has a number of experienced assembly workers that need jobs from the years of layoffs due to foreign investment If Union workers want to protect their jobs, why do not they go out and get them. The UAW could recruit Japanese companies to invest in new factories or refurbish old ones and then supply the factories with experienced union workers. Examples of successful transplants already exist, a UAW workers assemble Mazdas, Toyotas, Mitsubishis, Isuzus and Nissans. As the economy and production become more globalized, the United Auto Workers must keep their interests in mind any way possible. It is difficult to "buy American" these days as many products are produced at least in part all over the world. The UAW slogan "We buy what we make" now includes the "foreign" cars listed above. As we approach the next century and environmental and resource issues dominate the auto industry, the Japanese may lead the world in making the hybrid car, a realistic short-term solution to the future oil depletion. The UAW would be wise to find the companies where the future lies, and sit down at the bargaining table with them.

Hybrid Cars: A Possible Solution The faltering American car industry as well as an increase of overseas-based plants has lead to an increased animosity toward the foreign car industry. While the big three has begun to move their assembly plants over to Mexico, the once patriotic dedication of the residents of Motown has turned from a positive way of promoting local business to a reason for taking out aggression on foreigners who, to the locals, represent a rival business that drives the American car companies to find cheaper labor to stay competitive. Recently, there has been a huge move to what are known as hybrid cars." Several years ago the hope for the future was the electric car but short battery life and long recharging times have proved that this type of car is not practical. The hybrid car, on the other hand, uses both gasoline and a more powerful battery to run the car. Many car companies in Japan have already built very efficient and relatively inexpensive hybrid cars. The Big Three in the US are struggling to catch up. Whether or not this new road the car industry is heading will revive the car industry in Detroit remains unknown. One example of hybrid cars in the US is in New York ( .

Recently in New York a fleet of 40 foot, 36 passenger hybrid busses have been deployed. Rather than running on a diesel engine the busses rely on a generator that runs on propane. The propane generator continuously recharges battery packs near the back of the bus. This new hybrid bus can run over 200 miles before refueling and doing a major recharge. Experts have determined that these hybrid busses emit 50% fewer emissions than diesel busses. The hybrid busses currently about $20,000 in price way of environmental are accompanied by an increase of but the benefits they bring in friendliness, they are well worth it. Toyota Prius Toyota, a leader in the hybrid industry, has developed a highly advanced passenger hybrid car, the Prius. The Prius by Toyota is the next step in the company's previous environment-friendly, low fuel-consumption cars. The Prius incorporates the technologies of both the clean-burning, high efficiency internal combustion engine as well as the pollution free, silent electric vehicle power systems. By utilizing their previous breakthroughs in environmentally friendly transmissions and electrical engine management controls, Toyota's Prius shows the perfect balance of electrical and internal combustion engines.

While the gasoline engine is used during ignition and acceleration the electrical component of the car takes complete control during long consistent driving periods. The Prius still has a gasoline engine but sports a nickelmetal hydride battery, an electric motor and an electric generator. By combining these components the hybrid nearly doubles the fuel efficiency of normal cars (up to 66 mpg) and has significantly lower emissions. The Prius can travel up to 800 miles on a single tank of gas but this does not take into account recharging. The price of the Prius in Japan is currently $16,000 American ( Honda is also a major competitor in the hybrid race. Honda on the other hand also offers the EV Plus, an electric car. The disadvantage of electric cars is that they must be recharged overnight almost every night. Honda also offers the Civic GX, a fuel-efficient natural gas vehicle. Natural gas, however, does not provide the same top speeds, power, or acceleration as gas powered or hybrid cars ( How 14 Car Companies Got Their Names | Mental Floss How 14 Car Companies Got Their Names Image credit: Like us on Facebook Most of us probably don't put too much thought into our cars' names.

Sure, we'll take the wheel of a Toyota or a Chevrolet, but how did those cars pick up their monikers? Let's take a look at a few that aren't quite as obvious as the Ford name. 1. Nissan The company we now know as Nissan got its start in 1914 as DAT Motorcar. The "DAT" name came from the first initial of the three founders' family names. In 1931, DAT introduced a new small car they called the Datson, which later morphed into "Datsun." Meanwhile, businessman Yoshisuke Aikawa founded an industrial holding company in 1928 and named his new venture Nippon Sangyo. (The name loosely translates into "Japan Industries.") Aikawa's company bought out DAT in 1931, and eventually the Nippon Sangyo name became abbreviated as Nissan. Some drivers may remember cruising around in Datsuns before they ever got behind the wheel of a Nissan. What prompted the name change? Until the early 1980s, the Datsun badge appeared on the cars Nissan exported out of Japan.

In 1981, though, Nissan execs announced that they were changing this practice in order to strengthen global awareness of the Nissan brand. Thus, you can't buy a Datsun Z anymore, but you can get the keys to a Nissan one. 2. Toyota Toyota didn't start out as a car company. It wasn't called Toyota, either. In 1926, Sakichi Toyoda founded the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, a company that made looms, not cars. In 1933, Toyoda's son Kiichiro started a separate motors division, and the company's cars quickly took off. How did the name get from "Toyoda" to "Toyota," though? In 1936, the company held a competition to design a new logo, and the winner consisted of the three Japanese characters that made up the Toyoda name. However, after giving it some thought, the Toyoda family decided that the slightly tweaked "Toyota" was stronger. Writing out "Toyoda" required nine brush strokes, whereas "Toyota" only required eight, a lucky number in Japan.

Plus, the name just sounded better, so Toyoda became Toyota. 3. Chrysler Walter Chrysler probably wasn't on anyone's short list of potential moguls when he was a young man. He spent much of his youth kicking around Texas as a railroad mechanic, and although the work wasn't glamorous, he developed quite a skill set as a machinist. In 1911, the gifted 36-year-old machinist became production chief for Buick, and by 1919 he was making millions of dollars a year as head of the company. Chrysler eventually left Buick, and after a failed attempt to take over the Willys-Overland Motor Company, he uses some of his accumulated wealth to buy a controlling interest in the floundering Maxwell Motor Company. Chrysler's new company introduced a popular car called the Chrysler in 1924, and by the next year the Maxwell name had disappeared in favor of Chrysler. 4. Honda Honda bears the name of its founder, Soichiro Honda. Honda was a precocious mechanic who started the Honda Motor Co. Ltd. in 1946 to build small motorcycles.

Although the motorcycle business got off to a slow start, by the 1960s the business had become one of the world's largest manufacturers of bikes. In 1963, Honda introduced its first production automobile, the Honda T360 pickup truck. 5. Buick Scottish immigrant David Dunbar Buick was an inventive fellow; before he ever got into the motors game, he created a more efficient way of manufacturing enameled cast-iron bathtubs. Buick began toying with engines during the 1890s, and after starting one failed engine company, he tried again with the Buick Manufacturing Company in 1902. Buick's cars were terrific -- his pioneering use of overhead valve technology made them tough to beat -- but he had trouble actually producing and delivering them on time. As a result he always needed to find new investors to advance him cash, and eventually his company was sold out from under him to General Motors founder William C. Durant. In 1908, Durant gave Buick the heave-ho and a $100,000 severance check.

Buick tried to parlay this money into a great fortune by investing in oil fields, but he didn't have any luck. When his attempts to get back into the car business in the 1920s floundered, he ended up working as an instructor at the Detroit School of Trades. That venture didn't go so well, either; the school demoted him to receptionist. When Buick died in 1929, he was flat broke. 6. Chevrolet Remember how William Durant forced David Buick out of Buick's own company? Karma can be rough. In 1910, Durant's own creditors forced him out of his management role at the company he started, General Motors. Durant didn't stay down for long, though. He teamed with Swiss race car driver and mechanic Louis Chevrolet to start a new motor company in 1911. The pair named the company after Chevrolet, and legend has it that they developed a logo that resembled the Swiss cross of Chevrolet's homeland. (Other stories indicate that Durant copied the bowtie logo from a French hotel's wallpaper.) The company quickly earned the pair quite a bit of loot.

Durant suddenly had enough cash to regain control of General Motors, and in 1917 GM acquired Chevrolet. Louis Chevrolet didn't do quite as well, though. He sold his share of the company to Durant in 1914, and although his career had other highlights, including a 7th-place finish at the 1919 Indianapolis 500, he never enjoyed much financial success and eventually had to return to Chevy as a consultant. 7. Dodge Brothers John and Horace Dodge were gifted machinists who began a Michigan bicycle company in the 1890s. Eventually they sold this business and began creating transmissions for Olds in 1902 and then Ford in 1903. However, they longed to create cars of their own, so in 1913 they left their lucrative supplier positions at Ford and started working on their own car designs. The brothers' cars were soon the second-hottest sellers in the country, and they were fabulously wealthy. 8. Mercedes In 1897, Austrian entrepreneur Emil Jellinek began ordering Daimler cars that he could drive in some of Europe's quickly growing auto races.

It took a few years, but by the dawn of the 20th century, Jellinek had a number of Daimlers that he adored driving. He often raced under an assumed name when driving these cars; he took on the name of his 12-year-old daughter Mercedes. In 1900, Jellinek worked out a deal with Daimler to order 36 new cars on the condition that the cars be called Mercedes. Daimler agreed, and the famed luxury brand name was born. 9. Volvo The Swedish automaker's name is Latin for "I roll," a conjugation of the word volvere. The company got its start as part of the Swedish ball bearing company SKF, and after SKF trademarked the Volvo name in 1915, the company planned to put the "Volvo" name on most anything that rolled, from bears to bicycles to automobiles. The plan wasn't quick to get off the ground, though; thanks to World War I, Volvo didn't actually start its car business until 1926. And a few quick ones: 10.

Cadillac: Named for Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, the French explorer who founded Detroit in the early 18th century. 11. Saab: Abbreviation of "Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolag," which is Swedish for "Swedish Airplane, Limited." 12. Volkswagen: German for "people's car." 13. Lexus: Toyota went to its ad agency and an image-consulting firm when it needed a name for its luxury division. At first, they decided on "Alexis," but it gradually evolved into Lexus. 14. Mazda: According to Mazda's website, the brand's name is borrowed from the Zoroastrian religion. Ahura Mazda is the Zoroastrian "God of reason who granted wisdom and united man, nature and the other gods."

Question: Which car company is named after the founder of Detroit?
Answer: Cadillac